The Asia America Youth Orchestra charmed the audience, Sunday night, at the Armstrong Theatre in Torrance, with a mix of pop-culture TV themes and classical arrangements.

The night’s program got off on the right foot with Mozart’s overture from “The Marriage of Figaro” started the evening off right – the familiar high-energy piece is to some the definition of classical music. The orchestra performed it well, with each section coming in loud and clear.

Next, a performance of Ning Bao Sheng’scq “Spring Will Come to Xiang River” was highlighted by the performance of the first soloist of the evening, Vincent Huang, on the Asian flute, playing Sheng’s “Spring Will Come to Xiang River.”While not nearly as well-known as Mozart’s composition, The piece showed off Huang’s flute skills, as the piece it hopped from fast and frantic to tranquil and even-paced. The piece It was also the only Asian work of the night, which seems strange for the Asia America Orchestra.

In an immediate about-face from the very Eastern Sheng, the next soloist, Justin Klunk, playing the alto sax, performeda medley of songs from Disney’s version of “Cinderella.” a medley “Cinderella Medley” from the Disney movie “Cinderella.” It was an arrangement by David Benoit, the Grammy-nominated musical director and conductor of the Asia America Youth Orchestra.

The alto sax lends itself to sounding like Kenny G, and this piece was no exception. It would have been nice to see hear a little more variety from a in the medley from a Disney movie, as this only omitted the some of the most familiar songs and the piece ended up sounding a little repetitive. However, Klunk’s sax did spiced up the composition and interjected some needed ear-catching lead lines.

The last piece prior to intermission was Alessandro Sarasate’s “Zigeunerweisen,” featuring soloist Jessie Chen on the violin.

“Zigeunerweisen” is fast and chaotic, full of pizzicato strings and quick changes. This piece, more than any other on the program, felt like it was meant for a soloist. It was full of back-and-forth interplay between the conductor and the soloist, creating a dynamic tension that made the piece seem more like a sparring match than a musical arrangement.

The second part of the show featured the themes to After the break, the concert shifted gears, with the theme songs to TV’s “Mission: Impossible,” “Family Guy” and “The Simpsons,” each with specialty instruments including conga drums in “Mission: Impossible” and horn solos in the other two.

The details of each theme were interpreted faithfully, including the chant of the words “The Simpsons” at the beginning of the theme. It was which in addition to being met with a laugh from the audience and cemented the difference between the the serious classical music and the humor of the TV themes.

The penultimate performance of the night was the concert’s final soloist was Eleanor Dunbar, playing the violin in the final movement of Tchaikovsky’s Violin Concerto, with the “Finale: Allegro vivacissosmo vivacissimo.” If you aren’t familiar with musical terms, “Allegro” indicates quick, or lively, and this piece was that from start to finish.

Dunbar’s violin was impressive in how quickspeed and precision was were impressive, and she seemed to almost take over for the conductor during some of the solo passages. The orchestra complemented the song perfectly, not seeming too large or slow for the quick, nimble piece.

The show ended with an acknowledgment of the members of the orchestra who are graduating from the Youth orchestra and moving on to other ventures; the awarding of three scholarships(congrats to all); and one last TV theme, “Sesame Street.” For that performance, conductor David Benoit took a seat at the piano at center stage and played while leading the orchestra though a very jazzy take on the children’s show theme.

Benoit did a tremendous job leading the orchestra. He wasn’t a fiery, over-exuberant conductor, but instead let the musicians take the focus.

For the show’s finale, he joined the orchestra on a grand piano, which would be a little needlessly showy if it were so impressive that he could nail the jazzy sections of the “Sesame Street” theme while conducting.

However, for all his mild-mannered demeanor during the the music, between song he was a little chatty, getting into not only the origins of the songs came from orand some notes about their importance, but how he found out about them and how they relate to other songs of the era. While the back story was interesting, it made a show that already had a lot of talking – honoring of the graduating seniors and scholarship recipients – even slower.

Still, the evening proved to be provided great exposure to for some highly talented, young classical musicians.

whether it was for the “serious classics” or to hear some popular TV themes given the orchestra treatment.

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